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Carter’s approaches half a billion dollars in annual online sales

March 2, 2017 11:09 AM

Carter’s Inc. is closing in on an online sales milestone.

Online sales companywide grew 24% year over year in 2016 to nearly $500 million, CEO Michael Casey told analysts on the children’s apparel company’s recent fourth quarter 2016 earnings call, though he declined to specify an exact figure. Carter’s, No. 113 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, does not provide an e-commerce total sales number by brand but it reported that U.S. online sales for its Carter’s brand grew $50.6 million in 2016 while its OshKosh brand grew online sales by $18.7 million in the U.S. In Q4 2015, the company reported that its Carter’s brand U.S. online sales increased $38.5 million in the period and Oshkosh by $14.2 million.

“Given the success of our e-commerce business, and the secular shift to online shopping, we expect our domestic e-commerce sales to contribute $350 million to our growth over the next five years,” Casey said, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “That is expected to be the largest contributor to our billion-dollar growth plan.”

Early returns suggest the retailer’s buy online, pick up in store initiative, which launched during the second quarter, is driving incremental sales in the company’s stores. Casey told analysts on the call that 10% of online orders were picked up in stores last year, with about 30% of those shoppers buying something else once they were in the store.

“The customer experience in our stores is obviously very important, which is why we have been investing in a number of areas such as our omnichannel initiatives,” chief financial officer Richard Westenberger told analysts on the call. “As the online and stores channels continue to converge, we want to provide our customers with the seamless experiences and capabilities which they expect.”